The Africa Gambit: China’s Shadow, India’s History

Africa is the battleground for the 21st-century geopolitics. China has been there for decades, building roads, ports, and railways—often with the help of cheap Chinese labor. India, on the other hand, has a different advantage: history. We have a huge Indian diaspora in Africa (think Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius). There’s a cultural soft power that China lacks. However, we’ve been slow on the infrastructure front. Recently, India has been pushing the ‘Africa-India Summit’ and focusing on capacity building—training civil servants, giving scholarships. It’s a slower burn compared to China’s cash-for-contracts approach. But in the long run, if you train a nation’s leaders, you win their loyalty. I think India is waking up to the fact that we can’t let Africa become an exclusive Chinese playground. We have skin in the game, and it’s time to play harder.